This engrossing, unexpectedly timely study of the politics of cultural nationalism resurrects the hidden history of la pachuca
, the female counterpart to the 1940s pachuco
, the zoot suit–wearing Mexican-American hipster made notorious by two consecutive wartime flashpoints: 1942's Sleepy Lagoon case and 1943's Zoot Suit Riots. Ramírez (Through an East-West Gaze
) builds on the best recent scholarship to argue that la pachuca
's sexually charged and gender-ambiguous presence in WWII–era Los Angeles made her so fraught a figure of resistance to both dominant and ethnic norms of feminine behavior that she was difficult to incorporate in narratives shaping Latino identity. A generation later, a nascent Chicano movement re-appropriated the pejorative archetype of el pachuco
as a symbol of rebellious pride but continued to vilify or ignore the female zoot-suiter—reflecting, the author contends, the entrenched patriarchal and traditional gender norms in Chicano and U.S. nationalism at large. A vital addition for those interested in American ethnic and cultural studies as well as studies of sexuality and visual culture, this book speaks forcefully to current Obama-era and post–Prop 8 debates over race, ethnicity, sexuality, patriotism and citizenship. (Feb.)
